Ague Proof posted:

Why was the President of Venezuela trying to force his way into the Assembly? The executive and legislative branches should remain distinct (see: the formality of the Speaker having to invite the President to the House for the State of the Union.) This is worrying.

Race Realists posted:

Wobbuffet = Bana Alabed


its pretty well known that the FBI monitors the forums, or am i wrong and they stopped?

she literally made an account just to post in this very thread and the first post is her swearing she isn't a government official

ANIME AKBAR posted:

lmao that's because I warned her beforehand of the poo poo she would catch for saying hurtful things about dear leader. And even I grossly underestimated how much the thread would poo poo itself.

ANIME AKBAR posted:

lmao that's because I warned her beforehand of the poo poo she would catch for saying hurtful things about dear leader. And even I grossly underestimated how much the thread would poo poo itself.

You honestly think the FBI keeps tabs on a dead gay comedy forum.

ANIME AKBAR posted:

lmao that's because I warned her beforehand of the poo poo she would catch for saying hurtful things about dear leader. And even I grossly underestimated how much the thread would poo poo itself.

You honestly think the FBI keeps tabs on a dead gay comedy forum.

THS posted:

almost certainly they do. the US intelligence services are bloated and full of computer touchers doing surveillance. why wouldn’t they keep tabs on a fairly active website that has had secret service threats in the past and regularly has posters chanting death to america?

GreyjoyBastard posted:

apparently nobody here actually read anything about the current Venezuela fuckery other than that tweet, lol

tldr: Venezuelan troops and cops prevented just enough of the opposition's slim majority from being present for the new president-of-the-national-assembly election, the PSUV guy was sworn in after receiving 81 votes out of 167 legislators

it doesn't particularly matter in terms of actual power given the Super-Parliament Trick, but it does allow maduristas to go "oho guaido isn't assembly president anymore"; tbf, the best thing for the opposition right now (insofar as there's literally anything they can do) would probably be for Guaido to retire and mooch off US money or something, he's demonstrably a moron and ain't no way he's going to galvanize the population he needs after his dumb attempted revolt fell flat on its dumb face

joepinetree posted:

Well, for starters the guy who won, Luis Parra, isn't a member of PSUV.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

my mistake, I assumed that if the Venezuelan leadership was going to these lengths he'd be a psuv guy, but he... was a member of Capriles' party until recently? still is?

looks like he's currently angling for "reconciliation" lol, but i guess controlled opposition is at worst a lateral move from Guaido if Parra can actually get some support (by, say, offering whatever breadcrumbs the PSUV is willing to give a less boisterous national assembly)

GreyjoyBastard posted:

tldr: Venezuelan troops and cops prevented just enough of the opposition's slim majority from being present for the new president-of-the-national-assembly election, the PSUV guy was sworn in after receiving 81 votes out of 167 legislators

GreyjoyBastard posted:

my mistake, I assumed that if the Venezuelan leadership was going to these lengths he'd be a psuv guy, but he... was a member of Capriles' party until recently? still is?

looks like he's currently angling for "reconciliation" lol, but i guess controlled opposition is at worst a lateral move from Guaido if Parra can actually get some support (by, say, offering whatever breadcrumbs the PSUV is willing to give a less boisterous national assembly)

joepinetree posted:

So what you are saying is that you started from a conclusion, worked backwards from it, and then found the evidence that supported your conclusion even if it wasn't particularly true? If you're going to be smug about telling people that they only read a tweet, might want to get the facts right before assuming anything.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

yeah i probably should have dialed down the "read an article lol" if I wasn't going to spend more than thirty seconds myself

brugroffil posted:

https://twitter.com/JakobJohnston/status/1213116457992835076

GreyjoyBastard posted:

yeah i probably should have dialed down the "read an article lol" if I wasn't going to spend more than thirty seconds myself

Cerebral Bore posted:

Wow, wonder if any of the people who were 100% sure that Morales had cheated in the election are going to change their minds now that we know that the OAS report was literally the result of Marco Rubio's hatchetman deciding the conclusion that would be reached in advance?


You do realize that this is why people see you as a giant joke, right? So why do you still keep trying to act all authoritative?

GreyjoyBastard posted:

mostly because i can't always be bothered to slather "iirc" and "afaik" everywhere in all my posts

and i doubt you'd like my writing style particularly more if it was even more gummed up with conditionals especially since I'd still be disagreeing with you sometimes and therefore bad

Cerebral Bore posted:

You didn't recall or know anything whatsoever here. You just jumped in accusing everybody else of being ignorant while not having done even the most basic study of the facts and now you're trying to brush it off as "writing style" lmao forever.

quote:

- Maduro linked Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly’s deputies of his party, Yanet Fermín and Fernando Orozco, to a “terrorist cell led by Leopoldo López and the government of Iván Duque” that allegedly intended to strike a coup to overthrow Maduro on the 10th of December. Maduro also claimed that James Story, the ex-Chargé d’ Affaires at the United States Embassy in Caracas, is involved in the conspiracy plans against his government.

- On Monday the National Constituent Assembly—the government-controlled body elected in 2017 to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution—voted to allow the trial of four opposition deputies for a supposed terrorist plot in the eastern state of Sucre.

- The opposition coalition is also denouncing that the government is trying to buy opposition’s deputies, and turn them against Guaidó–the so-called “scorpion operation.” U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela Elliot Abrams claims to have information that Maduro offered $500,000 to deputies to vote against Guaidó. The Voluntad Popular party expelled from its ranks the deputy of the National Assembly (AN) José Gregorio Noriega, as having been involved.

Opposition parties hold 112 of the 167 seats in the National Assembly. However, 8 of them are outside of the dominant faction, 7 have been sanctioned and have been removed from the dominant coalition. According to Venezuelan journalist Jose de Bastos, this currently gives Guaidó 93 votes.

In order to ensure its majority, the opposition voted to allow virtual voting for legislators abroad. But after the norm changed, some opposition deputies filed an appeal before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to challenge the modification of the National Assembly (AN) proceedings. The argument was that the new arrangement prejudice supplement deputies to assume as principal deputies. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), in a speedy decision, declared the “absolute nullity” and the lack of legal effects of Assembly’s Reforms. Referring to the expulsion of Noriega form the Popular Will party (see above) Guaidó said that “nobody in their right mind” would ever appeal to a Chavista-controlled TSJ to act against their political allies.

quote:

Parra told reporters 140 lawmakers were present in the session and that his candidacy was approved with 81 votes, while Regime deputy Pedro Carreno told AFP that the vote took place with 150 deputies present and that Parra received 84 votes.

quote:

Guaido said that he and other legislators were prevented from entering the building before the vote. In a viral video, the opposition leader at one point attempted to scale the fence into the premises but was pushed back by security personnel with riot shields.

However, a video published by Telesur, which is owned in large part by the Venezuelan government, shows that Guaido had in fact been granted access to the National Assembly building earlier in the day.

But he refused to enter without several other opposition MPs who had been stripped of their parliamentary immunity after being accused of crimes.

Ultimately, some thirty to forty opposition members from the 167-seat body were left outside the chamber while other MPs voted inside, Phillip Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst with the Crisis Group, told The Globe Post.

“It’s not entirely clear whether that was because they were outright refused or because the opposition wanted them all to go in together and the security wouldn’t allow that,” Gunson said.

According to Gunson, Guaido and other opposition members insisted on entering the chamber in unison because they feared security forces from President Nicolas Maduro‘s government would begin blocking some opposition MPs from entering the chamber once the assembly had reached an 84-member quorum.

The government “needed to get to a quorum of 84, but obviously didn’t want all of the opposition MPs to enter the chamber because then they were a majority,” Gunson said.

“The key thing was to get Guaido on the inside and enough people for the opposition inside so that it was legitimate, but without allowing them all in.”

It’s not clear whether or not the government had any such plans, but opposition members were reportedly blocked from entering the building as a group.

quote:

Second Vice President Jose Noriega said 31 opposition deputies joined Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela to vote for Parra, though Gunson put the figure at 18.

If all 167 members had ultimately voted, Gunson said the contest would have been “quite close” but that Guaido likely would have won with about 85 votes.

Though opposition lawmakers control 112 seats, the bloc has splintered over the last year with Parra and his allies breaking from Guaido after Parra was accused of being a part of a corruption scheme linked to Maduro’s regime.

A contingent of more radical members of the opposition had also broken with Guaido over strategic disagreements.

But these more radical members ultimately supported Guaido in an alternate vote that was organized by the opposition and held in the offices of a newspaper later Sunday evening in which Guaido received 100 votes.

These votes included some from several lawmakers that have been forced into exile or have taken shelter in foreign diplomatic missions over fears of being arrested.

Gunson said that several “alternate” or “sit-in” members also cast ballots in the second vote, though it’s unclear precisely how many.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I just don't get why these politicians in latin america keep getting into a pattern where they gotta keep personally running for reelection and not only is it no good for another party to take control, there's nobody from their own party that can be trusted to hold office.

Like even before getting into the specifics of each election, just personally holding power for over ten years feels like putting stress on the base concept of democracy, as the specific flaws of the one man in charge get more embedded in the absence of other perspectives and influences.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I just don't get why these politicians in latin america keep getting into a pattern where they gotta keep personally running for reelection and not only is it no good for another party to take control, there's nobody from their own party that can be trusted to hold office.

Like even before getting into the specifics of each election, just personally holding power for over ten years feels like putting stress on the base concept of democracy, as the specific flaws of the one man in charge get more embedded in the absence of other perspectives and influences.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I just don't get why these politicians in latin america keep getting into a pattern where they gotta keep personally running for reelection and not only is it no good for another party to take control, there's nobody from their own party that can be trusted to hold office.

Like even before getting into the specifics of each election, just personally holding power for over ten years feels like putting stress on the base concept of democracy, as the specific flaws of the one man in charge get more embedded in the absence of other perspectives and influences.

brugroffil posted:

Angela Merkel has destroyed German democracy, and FDR destroyed America nearly a century ago with his ego driven dictatorship!

CommieGIR posted:

....what? How so?

Cup Runneth Over posted: